News

There are some things in this life that you just don’t need to know. Why feet keep washing up in Canada and the US, for instance, or that some people splint when they poop. Add to this list the answer to why we all have chin dimples. One TikTok user asked the question “what is […]

If you are of a certain age, then you may have had one of your caregivers warn many, many times of the dangers of tampons causing toxic shock syndrome (TSS). It inspired fear in tampon-using people and, for some, it was thought that even leaving them in for one hour too long would cause a […]

Compared to other athletes, long-distance runners and walkers poop themselves an extraordinary amount.  In 2016, French walker Yohann Diniz soiled himself, and heroically continued, and was able to finish in eighth place, despite fainting several times due to his gastrointestinal distress. Paula Radcliffe stopped by the roadside during the 2005 London Marathon to relieve herself, while cameras […]

The idea that there is a binary between talents in the arts and talents in scientific fields is something that is completely made up. The disciplines are often kept separate as a way to push kids in education towards one career or another, but plenty of people are good at both. And these artistic celebrities […]

At least a trillion insects are killed annually for food and animal feed. Routine slaughter methods include extreme heat and cold, often preceded by starvation. By comparison, “only” around 79 billion mammals and bird livestock are slaughtered every year. Scholars have long recognised that the survival value of pain means many animals experience it, supposedly […]

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has revised its estimates of the number of scarlet fever cases in the country amid a “significant rise” in infections. The agency is now reporting a total of 27,486 suspected cases of the disease between September 12 and December 18 of this year. On Tuesday, The Guardian reported that […]

On December 14, the Roscosmos’ Soyuz sprung a leak in its coolant system. The event caused the cancellation of a spacewalk and left both the Russian space agency and NASA with a problem. That spacecraft was going to be used to bring cosmonauts Sergey Prokopeyev and Dmitri Petelin, and astronaut Frank Rubio, back to Earth […]

Henrietta Lacks will be getting a statue built for her in her hometown of Roanoke, VA. She was a Black woman who unfortunately died in 1951, aged just 31, from cervical cancer. However, she lives on in her cells, and has contributed to multiple medical breakthroughs. Despite this, the tale of how this all occurred […]

A modified drone carried a donor lung from Toronto Western Hospital to Toronto General Hospital in the space of five minutes, with the organ successfully transplanted into a patient with pulmonary fibrosis. Although donor organs have been transported between hospitals by drone before, lungs and hearts are considered particularly challenging. The operation demonstrates drones are […]

Historically, Jesus of Nazareth was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader, seen as a prophet by followers of Islam – and, of course, he is believed to be God the Son made flesh and the long-awaited Messiah who was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. This latter part earned him the appellative ‘Christ.’ Christians around […]

For those of us old enough to remember the dark days of the internet, the banana holds a special place in meme history. That’s because, back in the early aughts, a viral video started circulating with a message that couldn’t be ignored: the humble yellow fruit, it claimed, was “The Atheist’s Nightmare.” In the bizarre […]

Aside from suspiciously white teeth and an ungodly number of selfies on their phone, is there a way to spot a narcissist? According to a new study, look no further than their eyebrows. New research from the University of Toronto, published in the Journal of Personality, has suggested that people with “distinctive eyebrows” are more […]

A previously unidentified Maya civilization made up of 964 interconnected settlements has been discovered in northern Guatemala. Dated to the Preclassic Maya period – which lasted from around 1000 BCE until 150 CE – the scattered sites cover an area of approximately 1,685 square kilometers (650 square miles) and are linked by 177 kilometers (110 […]

Since August 20, 2007, an alarming number of human feet have washed up on the coasts of the Salish Sea in the US and Canada. OK, any number of human feet washing up on the shore is a little alarming, but between 2007 and 2019 there have been over 21 feet – usually still in […]

Glass frogs are camouflage specialists. As nocturnal animals, they sleep all day on bright green leaves against which their translucent bodies are almost impossible to see, protecting them from predation. Now, new research outlines the physiological magic trick they perform to remain so see-through: sucking their red blood cells into their liver. It sounds gross, […]

You’re a Barbary macaque high in the Atlas Mountains of Morrocco. A fellow monkey comes towards you and hands you an infant. You’re now both holding the mini monkey, and you’ve just made an ally. This behavior is known as “sandwiching”, and it’s how Barbary macaques curry favor with troop mates – an important skill […]

If you share your Netflix password or use someone else’s to access streaming services, you could be breaking copyright laws, according to a UK government agency. The news may come as another blow to the many people that password share (definitely not us though…), as Netflix announces they will be clamping down on the practice […]

Has anyone ever tried to milk the Grinch? We know it’s a weird point to start on, but as a fluffy, bipedal animal, you’d be tempted to qualify it as a mammal. And that got us to thinking: why aren’t there any green mammals? They say absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. By that […]

As humanity ponders a future beyond the confines of Earth’s atmosphere, a team of researchers has put forward a semi-serious plan for creating giant space metropoles out of disintegrated asteroids. Presenting their findings in a new study, the authors say that taking advantage of the inherent crumbliness of space rocks could be cheaper and easier […]

Picture the scene: a softly lit restaurant, an intimate corner table, your dream human sitting opposite you. You’re about to launch into the speech you’ve been rehearsing all day, you’re going to bare the innermost workings of your soul… and they immediately whip out their phone. That, friends, is called “phubbing”, and according to some […]